Some might recall that in the early 2000′s WotC allowed free and for-money downloads of previous Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (2E) products. I saw all the books I used to desire so greatly. Ready. Waiting. Since 3E was the version at the time, they really didn’t have much value, but one might say it came down to the principle of the matter. That is, I wanted them so badly before, I could now satisfy that latent avarice with one fell swoop of a credit card. And swoop fell-ly I did, obtaining all manner of books in pdf form for extremely low prices (I believe it was 5 dollars or less a piece).

With this method I was able to collect every Dark Sun game product produced for 2E even including the books that had small references to Dark Sun (Ravenloft’s Domains of Dread and the Book of Artifacts). I even got the extended and revised Dark Sun books. Not because they were good in anyway, but I wanted to complete collection just in case I had need for them as a reference in the future. Additionally, along with all the Dark Sun novels published during the 2E days, during my last gaming material clean-up I took out all the Dark Sun related articles from the old print Dragon magazines I had (I took a picture of them for all to see!).

Dark Sun 2E articles from the in-print Dragon Magazine.

I still get a nice feeling that I have them since they are hard to come buy and hold fond reminders of the Dark Sun setting.  However, with 4E Dark Sun coming, my possession of these books takes on new meaning. Since new material for the 4E setting won’t be readily available, if I need a map of Tyr, Ur Draxa, some interesting weapons, monsters or adventures, I’ll certainly have a good source of references.